Quilting

My mother was a quilter, and when she died in 1994, she left an unfinished quilt top. It broke my heart to think that it would go unfinished so I decided to learn the art of quilting so that I could complete the quilt.  Not wanting to ruin the quilt that she started, I began to learn the process before attempting to finish her work in progress. My first quilts were not very good!  I got a lot of satisfaction from working on them, but when I look back at them now I think “oh my, that was obviously a beginners quilt”!   I have come a long way over the years and I would now consider myself an “intermediate” quilter.

 My favorite part of quilting is designing the quilt, choosing the fabrics, cutting them into squares and triangles and then piecing the blocks together. For the design, I often begin with a pattern from a magazine or a purchased pattern, but my finished quilt does not usually look anything like the pattern I started with.   Once I get to the actual quilting, it kind of becomes “work” to me. It can literally take months or years to handquilt a piece and machine quilting can be very difficult to do on a home sewing machine, especially if the quilt is very big. There are services that you can send a finished quilt top out to for quilting, but it is expensive and somehow I feel like I should finish what I started. Because of the time involved, my favorite type of quilt to make is a wall hanging or lap size quilt. I think I need the “instant gratification” of seeing my finished work. A bed sized quilt can literally take months, or even years to complete.  I lose patience and interest if the process takes too long. 

 

A quilt I made for Emma several years ago

I like to give quilts as gifts to friends and family, and I especially like making quilts for my granddaughters.  I have been told that they are taking up an awful lot of room at their house though, so I have slowed down on that process.  I think my youngest granddaughter will need a new quilt soon though!  The hope is always that they will keep and cherish the quilts and the thought and work and love that went into them.

So, I continue to learn and try new techniques.  Oh, and my mother’s quilt top?  Still not finished.  I really need to get to that someday…